personal blog about various interests: fargo, north dakota, boston, finance and markets, travel, airlines and hotels, volunteering, nutrition, family and yoga and other things i like.
this major project i'm working on at work is just that: major. and a pita. [side note: i'm trying to swear less, or swear in another language (seems more intelligent, right?), but its hard not to say pita. pitb just doesnt work quite as well...] and so i'm taking a break at the end of the day to write this - actually i would go home because i've been here well over 8 hours, BUT i told the guy i'm training i would review something for him, so i'm hanging out for a bit. normally i dont ramble from work (well, ramble on here, that is, i definitely just talk about nothing at work), but the whole flood thing is getting me a bit worried and this is my only link to it. speaking of which, my friend pointed out that the fargo flood finally made the front page of cnn today. i didnt see it, but here is a link to the story. for those of you not in fargo and hearing about this 24/7, i just got a note from @fargofloodstage "The Red River at Fargo ND is at 34.12 ft which is 16.12 ft above flood stage."
and for some other random stuff i have found interesting lately, here is a chart from the economist showing the most expensive cities to live in. why is it that i always want to live in expensive places?? does this say something about my personality? i'm not super-pretentious, i dont think... i guess its just the skyscrappers and cool architecture and lots of people i dont know (anonymity). but anyway, what do you think? AND more importantly, do you have an economist login and can get the whole results?? and now on to the even cooler stuff... jezebel is holding their own version of march madness with voting each day for the cake vs. pie tournament. its totally awesome. here is the link to the explanation of the game. print out your own version and fill it out. the guy at work and i did and we had almost exactly the same thing! so funny. i'll let you know my results in a few days after you have had a chance to fill out your own version. we'll see who wins the actual jezebel tournament. leave your final picks (winner of cake bracket and winner of pie bracket) in the comments section... who you gonna pick to win??
[wicked game is a song by chris isaak on the heart shaped world cd]
so yeah, I’m starting to get a bit freaked out. About the river. Rising. The red river. The red river rising. I keep getting these tweets from @fargofloodstage that tell me the current level of the river (at 9:42 am pacific on tues: "The Red River at Fargo ND is at 28.2 ft which is 10.2 ft above flood stage." YES. That is UP THREE FEET from yesterday). And then I got a tweet from @inforum saying they urgently need sandbaggers. And what am I doing?? Sitting on my ass in california working for the man. Literally. There is a man I work for. So yes, this is all starting to freak me out a bit. Can people go out and sandbag for me? And can you give me updates? How is it all going? What level is your house at?
i looked online and see that airfare home for the weekend is $657 and i have a $250 voucher i have to use before may - do ya'll need me to head home and help out?? wait. nevermind. just got an email from my mom who points out they need helpers NOW and not on friday. should i stay or should i go? hmmm...
anyone have any other links i should include for all you need to know about fargo flooding?
[subject from the great credence clearwater revival song. if you need me to explain it, well... ]
its 4:18am. i don't think i have slept a wink so far. i was in bed slightly after 11 and don't remember sleeping at all, yet i am wide awake.
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now it is mid-morning and i am taking a quick break from a super-fun project looking up transactions to update quickly. (mostly so i don't fall asleep) this project is booooring. but its doubly worse today because i am so so very tired. i did not sleep at all last night because i was ITCHING. EVERYWHERE. i'm not sure if its my new sheets, the fabric detergent they were washed in, or what. i stopped writing above at 4am because i was also looking up information on bed bugs and i determined, using my scientific brain, that i do not have bed bugs, just the itchies. so i tried going back to bed hoping that would make me feel better ("that" being scientifically proving that i don't have bed bugs), but i still could not go to sleep and then at 5:30, my alarm went off. you see, yesterday i moved out of my friends house to an extended stay hotel which i had to hand clean the bathroom because there were strands of hair everywhere and where i now must wear slippers everywhere. this is actually the third room i've been in. the first room i checked into smelt really badly. i called the front desk and the woman told me she would look for some spray and call me back (i didn't want to tell her that i would prefer not to put chemicals into the air for me to breathe in, but i really wanted it to not smell bad, so if she could find the spray i would probably use it). i waited an hour for her to call me back - i was just sitting in a mostly dark hotel room trying not to move much because the place felt gross. when i finally got up to walk around, i noticed the carpet hadn't been vacuumed and there were crumbs on the table. so i went back to the front desk and she told me that the spray was locked in the janitor's closet. i did not ask why she couldn't call me back to tell me that. so she gives me a key to look at another room. i look at it, it's clean and smells fine, but the bathtub has rust stains in it. lovely. so i go back to the front desk and ask about the king size room. its $200 more per month, but by now, i think i need the extra space so i dont kill myself. so i get a king size room and then move all my stuff downstairs to another room.
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ok, another break. it is now the end of my day and i should be heading home soon... but first, let me finish my story:
so i moved in to my king size room. i waited until after 'til death on fox (not necessarily a good show, but i went to high school with one of the guys on it, timm sharp, and so i thought i would watch to see him for a second) was over before i could go to the grocery store to get some cleaning supplies for my place. i found some of 7the generation - is that the new company? - eco-friendly cleaning supplies and went home. but by that time, i was too tired so i just got in bed excited to be between the sheets (which i assume are clean) rather than sit ontop of the comforter (which is suspect). and i go to sleep. or try to. and i try to. for hours on end. at some point, i realize i'm not sleeipng because my legs and arms keep itching. i'm itching in the bed. its at 4am that i get up and look up bed bugs. they say to check the crevices of the mattress for bug droppings. i see none. i convince myself there are no bed bugs and try to go back to sleep. no avail. my trainer comes at 6:15 and we work out in the dark. i do not like working out in the dark. i do not like working out in the light, either, but i more dislike it in the dark. i wasn't going to go to work because i was so tired, but i realize staying in that apartment is worse than going to work. so i go to work.
and now i am tired. but i've gotten a lot done! and my trainer said she would stop by tonight to bring me a real comforter (with down!) and some extra sheets i can lay on my couch so i dont get grossness on me when i'm watching tv. i still have to unpack and make the place my own, so we'll see how it goes once i've done it up. half the day i've been sitting here wanting to move, but every place in town is so expensive or too far. i'm going to suck it up and live in my bug-infested bed with the "goal" of saving money...
oh, and then while i was up at all hours this morning, i realized that fargo is flooding. again. and i am not there to stop it. err... help. help! help sandbag. so i joined a few twitter feeds to get updates on the river levels (fyi: according to @fargofloodstage: The Red River at Fargo ND is at 25.69 ft which is 7.69 ft above flood stage #flood10 #fargoflood as of 4:36pm California time on Monday). for those far away, you can watch the rising flood levels at http://www.inforum.com/pages/floodcam. as i find more flood articles, i will keep you posted...
and now, because monday is my favorite day of the week, i have a video for you:
["wind of change" by the fabulous german scorpions because, just as momentous as the falling of the berlin wall, i have moved in to a new hotel that is very much like a communist apartment. AND so that higgi and i both know it is wind. not wing.]
everywhere i looked today there were words, articles, signs, conversations, commercials about the impending flood. the forum (local newspaper) has an article about the 90% chance of major flooding in fargo. a guy i used to work with in columbus sent me an article that was on bloomberg news about the upcoming flood in fargo (and a brief summary of last years flood). my parents and i watched a food network challenge (cereal bridges 2 or something like that) and a fargo environmental artist was on and built the fargo veterans memorial bridge and had it flooding in honor of last year's flood (the episode was filmed sometime in 2009).
in addition, today (technically this is written late friday night), my mom and i looked at a storage unit my dad found in north fargo. i will be moving my belongingings to a cement box (so sad!) tomorrow morning with the help of my brother and father. i should actually be going to bed right now so i can get up at 6am to start going through boxes. i was going to do that tonight, but i got tired and fell asleep on the couch. so i'm hitting the sack instead. and writing this.
in honor of the upcoming, dreaded flood, i pulled out another post i started last year (during the flood i started archiving articles about the flood and in may i tried putting a summary together but i was traveling, so it got put off) and thought i would publish it now - as a record of last year's flood. so here it is. enjoy...
for the past few months, i have been compiling articles and videos about floyd the flood. starting in march 2009, the red river valley was attacked by an unfriendly and unyielding amount of water. the heavy snowfall during the winter, combined with rainstorms right when the weather began warming the ground amounted to an unprecedented amount of water in our flat river valley.
i’m actually extremely glad that i was in fargo the past few months. it was really scary and if i had been somewhere else reading about the news, i would’ve been very stressed out wherever i was living - worrying about friends and family here in the valley. and i would’ve been incredibly frustrated speaking with my father who never worries about anything and then hearing stories about evacuating the hospital from my mother.
videos i've embedded some excellent videos from youtube showing exactly what went on in fargo during the sandbagging efforts.
this video shows a time lapse of volunteers sandbagging in the fargodome - my family and i went to the fargodome on multiple occasions to help out. this is what we were a part of:
this video is a compilation of news reports, newspaper headlines, pictures, and videos set to a montage. its very awe inspiring to think of what this community did. it shows people working overnight, through the snow, the rising water levels, etc.
this video is of ireporters from cnn. more shots of people sandbagging.
the video in this article doesn't work anymore, but it gives details about the height of the river.
don't forget some humor when looking at all of this. check out this link to the daily show's coverage of the flood.
articles
cnn has an excellent collection of pictures about the flood here
the nyt wrote a good article about a community in minnesota evacuating in this article
global warming articles the flood brought to attention the issues of climate change and a few bloggers picked up on our efforts
moue magazine's article on global warming - i commented! check them out here
another article i was turned on to that references floyd the flood
awesome and finally, an article i really liked by a guy who used to live in fargo (if i remember correctly) helping people to visualize the amount of sand needed (again, if i remember correctly). its pretty cool - here.
i pasted this video a long time ago, but its worth watching - its about the water flow and how dangerous it can be...
what are your memories from floyd the flood of 2009?
[let's get it started is a song by b.e.p. and also a different song by mc hammer (according to my itunes listing). i picked it as the title for this blog because its full of videos and articles of people getting it started...]
another thing that i need to do before leaving fargo in a few days (well, that i'd LIKE to do) is help sandbag. fargo has had AT LEAST as much snow as last year (by this time) and since the ground is still saturated from last year's snowfall and rain, there is a high chance that the city could flood. the local paper has reported that the city is calling for volunteers already. their goal is to have 1 million sandbags ready by the end of the month. i have no idea where they are, so far, but i would like to help out while i can.
in that vain, i'm pulling out a post i started last year and didn't finish. here are pictures BEFORE the flood of 2009. wiki has a great article talking about the details from last year. check it out here.
this picture is of el zagel golf course, about 5 blocks from my parents house. this is me standing on the sidewalk outside the fence of the golf course. the river is right next to the golf course, to the right of the picture. by the time the river actually flooded, this whole golf course was under water - there were about 8 feet of sandbags and mud surrounding the golf course. the water was almost up to the top. if you imagine i am less than 6 feet, the golf course was full of water straight across from the eye level of this picture. here is some more of the golf course that was flooded. this is an ironic picture. this is the street next to the golf course with a picture of the mud that they brought in. this is maybe 1/3 of what it ended up looking like. for those familiar with fargo, elm street in particular, this is me standing in the el zagel parking lot with elm street in front of me. at this point, in early march of 2009, elm street was already covered with water. here is elm street straight on - normally, this parking lot is 10-15 feet above the street. this is the mud brought in to protect the houses that are right across the street from the golf course. many houses couldn't get to their driveways because they were full of mud and sandbags. another picture of elm street (flooded) on the right. in th middle is the fence that divides the golf course (to the left) and the bike path (under water). this is the view standing in fargo looking at moorhead, mn. the river normally runs only between the two group of trees on the left and the trees in the middle. [we built this city - fabulous song from the 1980s by starship.]
who you gonna pick to win??
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